


We Make These Memories For Ourselves

by Nevcolleil



Series: The Winchester Wyndham-Pryce Family Business [3]
Category: Angel: the Series, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 16:20:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 6,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13574298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevcolleil/pseuds/Nevcolleil
Summary: Moments from the lifetime Wesley Wyndham-Pryce spent raising his found family of boys.





	1. Belgian Monks

**Author's Note:**

> These drabbles for written for joss100 n Livejournal years ago and moved here to AO3 recently for posterity.

“Belgian _what_?”

“Monks.”

“ _Monks_?”

Wesley’s eyes followed the loops and lines of demonic script inked within the pages of the ancient tome. “The box has to have been carved by Belgian monks…” Wesley looked up. “With a silver blade forged during the Winter solstice.”

“You have to be kidding.” Sam turned the text and looked for himself.

“We don’t have one of those,” Dean said. 

The grim line of Wesley‘s mouth softened. “No, Dean, we do not.”

“So we _have_ to kill it,” said Sam.

“ _Monks_ ,” Dean grumbled. 

Wesley sighed. “Yes, you’d be surprised how handy their boxes can be.”


	2. One-Eyed One-Horned Flying Purple People Eater

Dean hummed the tune all the way to St. Louis.

In the rearview mirror, Wes saw Sam glaring daggers at Dean from the backseat. Connor, as always, had his headset on and his eyes on the passing scenery.

Half-way between St. Louis and Destrehan, Dean began to sing.

“ _Dad._ “

“Dean, stop tormenting your brother.”

“I’m just singing!” Wesley’s lips twitched, but he took pity on Sam. “Well sing something else.”

“But it’s so _appropriate_.” 

“It didn’t _look_ like a beagle!”

In Sam’s defense, the beagle _hadn‘t_ looked like a beagle. It had gotten itself slimed. And Sam couldn’t be blamed for being startled when it came at him through the air. They’d thought old Mrs. Wilkins put her pets up at night.

However, the next time they rigged a spring board for launching salt canisters at a giant slime demon… They would have to make sure the board wouldn’t go off without their knowing.

Connor pulled off his headphones long enough to switch the disks in his cd player. 

“Hey, Con. Back me up.”

Wesley gave his eldest stepson a look. “Dean…”

Dean crooned the chorus line of the song. “- _flying purple people eater..._ “ Connor chuckled.

“Man, I hate you guys,” Sam sulked.

Connor put his cd case back into his backpack. “Dude, I can’t believe you shot the old lady’s _dog_.”

Sam groaned.

Wesley sighed, watching for his exit.


	3. Here So Far Away

Wesley loved each one of his sons. They were not his by blood, and they had each come to him almost by chance. But theirs was not a life in which bonds were formed lightly, and the connection Wesley felt to Connor and to the Winchester brothers was as strong as any felt by a father to his children. 

“No, Dean. It isn’t safe for you here.”

“And it’s safe for you?”

Wesley breathed through his nose, hoping that by thinning his lips and gritting his teeth, Dean wouldn’t hear the slight rattle in his breathing. He leaned heavily on the wall of the payphone stall.

“They’ve blocked the exits out of town. I couldn’t leave if I wanted to.” And he wanted to, actually. Staying put and going out in a blaze of glory might have appealed to him once. But Sam had just announced his engagement to his girlfriend. Connor would soon graduate from college, and Wesley wanted to be there when he received his diploma. He wanted to watch Sam and Jessica walk down the aisle. If he left, the band of demons that had trapped him here would take out their wrath upon the townspeople. And it was unforgivably selfish of him to want to abandon them to their fate for the preferance of his own. But he wanted it anyway. For the sake of his sons. 

Dean cussed, and Wesley didn’t object.

He loved his sons. He had since he had first lulled Connor to sleep with the cadence of his voice. Since the night he’d met Dean - seven years old, fearless and triumphant after nearly having been mauled by a skin walker. Since the first time little Sam had looked up at him with his always serious green eyes wide. They were as different to one another as they were the same in many ways. And loving them meant three different things. 

It meant letting Sam go when he applied to Stanford, but being there for him on every vacation, every holiday, so he knew he had a home to come back to. It meant trusting Connor’s judgement the first night he called home from Albany, and said he’d just been patrolling the campus and staked two vampires. Trusting him not to take on anything he couldn’t take on by himself, while Wesley and Dean were half-way across the country and couldn’t get to him fast enough if something went wrong. It meant accepting and encouraging Sam and Connor’s choices, when they chose to pursue lives outside of the hunt, while supporting Dean’s choice to embrace, exclusively, the life he and Wesley led. 

With each of them, now, it meant Wesley’s choosing a new path for himself. One that would improve his chances of walking out of Parson’s Keep alive…and endanger his sons? Or one that could mean sacrificing Wesley’s part in his son’s lives…to give them the chance to go on living.

This…whatever this was…was bigger than Parson’s Keep. Bigger than anything any of them had faced over the last nineteen years. Wesley could only hope Connor, Sam and Dean were prepared to face the new threat. Alone.

“There are…provisions. For each of you. You know where. See that your brothers get theirs.” 

“Wes-”

“Take care of yourself, Dean. And your brothers. Don’t be afraid to let them do the taking care once in a while.”

“Wait-”

Wesley gripped the phone receiver tightly.

“I am proud of you, you know. All of you. I always have been.”

“ _Dad_. Don’t-”

Wesley hung up.


	4. Pee On It!

“Pee on it!”

Wesley heard them through the open window as he came around the house. He could only sigh. “Good Lord.”

“ _What?_ “ That was Connor’s voice.

“You heard me. Pe-”

“I’m not _pee-ing_ on it. You pe- Ow! _OW_! It burned me!”

“Of course it burned you,” Dean was saying. Wesley quickened his pace as he neared the front walk. “It’s a mean little shit. Pee on it before it sets the whole frickin’ house on fire.”

“Would you both just _shut up_ already,” said Sam. “There’s gotta be something in the book about-”

There came the sound of a scuffle. “Don’t break the circle! If it gets out it’ll-”

“No! Aw, man. Dad’s gonna _kill_ you. He just bought that rug.” 

“Guys-”

“ _Me_?” Dean argued. “Dude, this is so not my fault…”

Wesley let himself into the house and went straight for his study, before heading in the direction of the ruckus coming from the living room.

Inside were his three sons. Sam was crouched behind the overturned couch, one of Wesley’s books open in his lap. Connor and Dean were trying to trample the fire sprite they’d trapped in a salt and shamrock circle they’d hastily created between themselves and the door. They had taken down the drapes and were using them to swat at the sprite from outside the circle, the enchantments Wesley had put on all of their window coverings protecting the drapes from bursting into flames themselves. 

The boys froze when Wesley entered the room. He opened the jar he’d taken from the shelves in his study and stepped into the circle without a word, upending the jar’s contents on the fire sprite streaking towards his feet.

“Iuguolo prodigiosus incendiary…”

The sprite shrieked, its bright blue flames graying, before going black, and dissipating like so much smoke. All that was left was a trace of the ground herbs Wesley had used to kill the sprite, and the remains of Wesley’s floor rug.

Wesley slowly lifted his gaze from it, to the wide eyes of his sons. Nine year old Sam gazed back at him, nervous but unblinking. Ten year old Connor shuffled his feet. Thirteen year old Dean looked as guileless, and guiltless, as he ever had. Which meant he was most likely the guiltiest party in the room. 

“Alright…” Wesley forced himself to take a slow breath, and not to think of the cracked eggs at the bottom of the grocery bag he’d dropped when he’d realized what was going on in his home. 

Wesley thought back. The baby Black Dog had been Connor’s. He’d wanted to keep it as a pet. Sam was the one who’d tried growing a clipping of devil’s snare under his bed - he’d meant to study it like a science project. Dean had instigated that fiasco with the Baltack gremlins, trying to sell their eggs…

“Which one of you collected this one?”


	5. Spork

Sam and Connor came home on holidays and vacations - the house near Fairfield existed for that reason. Wesley, Dean, Connor and Sam spent time together there. They ate meals together and slept under the same roof. They went hunting in a team and caught up on all the things they’d wanted to say to one another, while they were apart, but couldn’t.

Unfortunately, Connor seemed to have inherited his biological father’s talent for speaking his feelings. Dean relegated emotional exchanges to the much abhorred category of “chick flick moments”. And whenever Sam became emotional, Sam became quiet. Too quiet. Therefore the loneliness and uncertainty that crept between the brothers during their periods of separation, after a childhood spent in one another’s company almost perpetually, manifested itself when the three reunited. It took form in Connor’s sarcasm, Dean’s boastful tales of daring deeds, and Sam’s distant silence.

For the first few hours, at least.

After that, there was usually a fight. Sometimes blood was shed in the process; sometimes Wesley got off easy, and only had to replace a rug or two. Perhaps an end table. Then things went back to normal, and everyone was much more comfortable with one another.

Which meant Connor was only sarcastic when he knew he would get a smirk or a rude gesture for his trouble. Sam spoke in full sentences. And Dean…

Actually, Dean’s boasts were an unalterable force. They came when Dean was at odds with his brothers, and when he wasn’t, regardless.

“It’s what I had on hand.”

“Yeah, I get that, but… a _spork_?” Sam asked.

Dean winked. “It’s not a spoon, but it’s not a fork. It confuses the demons. You know, like crossing yourself backwards.” Dean’s was a shit-eating grin.

“Yeah,” Connor agreed. “But stupid.”

Sam laughed, as Dean wadded up his napkin and threw it at Connor’s head. “You try killing a Howler demon with four measly, aluminum _prongs_.”


	6. Look Under W

If you’d look in the dictionary under the term _Winchester_ you would find entries for the so-named computer disk technology, a particular brand of rifle, and an American city in North Virginia. You might also find a listing for the capitol of Hampshire in southern England, on Wesley’s home continent.

If you’d consult Wesley’s _personal_ definition of “Winchester”, however, you would find only his thoughts on Mary Winchester and her sons - _Wesley’s_ sons, by twist of fate and Mary’s gruesome murder.

Wesley’s definition includes adjectives like _stubborn_ and _unrelenting_ , though he always pronounces them like “determined.” He refers to the boys in terms of words like _independent_ and _rebel_ and – often – verbs like _plotting_ and _fighting_.

Standing on the lawn of the small aparment that has been Wesley’s home (when he is at home) for about a year, staring at the Impala, Wesley thinks of another term.

Well. He thinks of several. But “surprising” is certainly the most encompassing.

“Your- I’m sorry, what?” he asks, blinking.

“My son. Dad. I’ve got a _son_ ,” Dean tells him, sounding no less surreal the second time. And he’s grinning – that tentative joy Wesley’s glimpsed on his face so many times before. As if he thinks that he might be proud of himself but is waiting for Wesley’s approval to decide.

Wesley blinks. “Does the mother know?”

Dean smirks, clapping him on the shoulder. “Ah. I’ll get around to it,” he plays along. “What do you think?”

Wesley sees it now – the small face peering out of the back window of the Impala. There are a dozen questions to ask, so many things to consider. Quite a bit to be said about being responsible and about Dean’s practices concerning women, though they have changed considerably over the past five years.

But they can wait. The little person waiting in the car can not. Nor can the mixture of struggling comprehension, anxiety and hope showing clearly on Dean’s face.

“I think we ought to bring him in. If he’s anything like his father, he isn’t to be left alone with a Chevy whose keys are still in the ignition.”

Dean’s grin stutters and softens into a full smile. “Damn straight,” he says, turning to the Impala and his child (Dean’s _child_ , Wesley ponders) and waving him over.

“Ben! Come on out and meet your grampa!” 

Wesley all but stumbles over his own feet. “Oh, dear Lord,” he mutters, realization setting in.

Dean chuckles.

If you look under “W” for _Wyndam-Pryce_ in the dictionary, you won’t find a thing. But wander a bit and you will come across terms such as _worldly_ , _widower_ , _wrathful_ and _wry_. Wesley has been each. He simply chooses to concentrate on _wonder_ \- which is what the Winchesters have brought into his life.


	7. It's Just a Jump to the Left...

“Come on, Dad, it’s just a jump to the left… Okay, now you’re right…”

“If you start singing _the Hokey Pokey_ again I am emptying your trust fund.”

He could picture Dean’s grin clearly. 

“Thought we already used that on gear and ammo.”

“Ah. And now you see why.” Wesley spoke but his mind was focused on the haphazard path before him. He had only the soft gurgling of lava and Dean’s voice to guide him around the perilous cracks in the floor of the lightless room.

Dark lava. It wasn’t the most original use of magic as a security measure, but it was certainly effective. Wesley could give Cyvus that.

When he was safely on the other side of the chamber, Dean met him with a hug and a laugh. Wesley took a moment and a few calming breaths, smiling finally, at the red lines the ultraviolet goggles had left around Dean’s eyes once he’d removed them.

“Let’s make a note, shall we? No more battling evil, dimension-traveling sorcerers without at least _two_ night goggles.” 

Dean nodded. “Yes, sir.”


	8. Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving With a Picture

“Unpredictable” the shopkeeper had said, and “unpredictable” was right.

None of them were immune to the curse and it affected them each in a different way. Connor lost the ability to speak. He could only make low, feral noises and – inexplicably – the occasional high-pitched giggle. Wesley kept the other boys well away from him. The curse had effected Connor’s judgement, also, and _giggling_ had always made Connor irritable. He huddled near the rear of the cave, watching everyone with wary distaste. 

Wesley made a mental note to clean the premises of every hint of thestral root they could find. He wanted never to be without it again – hiking to the top of a bloody _mountain_ every time he needed it, with a trio of boys, was _not_ an option. And trying to perform complicated magic at the top of said mountain, with a trio of magically-altered boys, was not an experience Wesley ever wanted to repeat.

“That doesn’t look like a cibulium – not even a bit,” Dean sung. “It’s not my fault you can’t draw – stop poking me you little sh-”

“Dean!” Wesley scolded. 

Dean pouted. The curse had made him quite temperamental. It had also made him unable to communicate through anything but rhyming song. A fact that Sam relished no end.

“Sam, keep your pencil on the paper and out of your brother’s ear.”

Wesley wasn’t sure whether it was a good or a bad thing that Sam could only communicate through pictures. It made his translating Wesley’s spell book challenging (as he was the only one among them who could still read) but it also helped forestall the bickering that would occur once Dean realized what Sam had compared him to after he’d grown fur.

Wesley prepared the potion his spell book offered as the most likely cure for their predicament, working slowly so that he didn’t spill any of the ingredients. It was difficult to use his mortal and pestle now that he and the boys had all shrunken so much smaller than their natural size. Also, the fur didn’t itch so badly when he avoided fast movements.

“If we get out of this cave,” Dean sang glumly. “Human once more –  
Sammy, I swear – I’m never taking you to another frickin’ occult store.”

Sam narrowed his eyes and scribbled something on his paper. Wesley quickly covered it with his hand, sighing. He didn’t have to be able to read to guess what the word was.

From his corner, Connor giggled. Then growled.


	9. You Can't Take the Sky From Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This also involves elements of the children's show Ben 10. Ben Braeden is actually a Tennyson on his mother's side.

Wesley has no illusions about his performance as a parent.

He knows he was not the best father that the boys could have had. 

He spoiled them in some ways - and neglected them in others. He exposed them to a life that – regardless of having been his since his own childhood, and Mary’s since John Winchester’s death – has never been appropriate for children.

Wesley has his regrets. He sees how his own failings – his own stubbornness; his relentlessness, nearly to the point of obsession – have been passed down to his children, and Wesley feels guilt when he does.

But for all of that, Wesley cannot discount his successes as a father. He can’t help but take pride in his son’s accomplishments. Their strengths. Even those that are most assuredly their own. 

He doesn’t think that he did such a bad job, all the way around, and he has not hesitated to give his eldest son advice – when asked – on the subject of his grandson. He will not, when asked again in the future.

It’s just that he has such limited experience when it comes to this… particular aspect of parenting.

“Or- Perhaps, make that none at all,” Wesley admits, rubbing alien slime off of the lenses of his glasses with the hem of his button-down shirt. Ben is still swooping overhead, making strange, hissing noises that could signify either laughter or apology. As Wesley speaks no alien dialects, it is impossible to tell.

Dean has turned an alarming shade of red standing next to him. He raises one clenched fist to the sky and yells at his son. “Ben! You come down here right now and clean this mess up!”

Ben hisses again. Wesley is almost certain that he can still talk English in this form – he can be heard grumbling, now and then, as his aerial maneuvers take him closer to the ground. But he obviously doesn’t want to talk to his father at the moment. It isn’t a usual occurrence – Dean and Ben rarely fight. But even the closest of father/son bonds can be tested by severely extenuating circumstances…

And Wesley is rather certain that having one’s son begin to spontaneously shift between species can be considered severely _extenuating_.

“I-” Dean begins shouting louder, then suddenly deflates as he realizes Ben has flown too high to hear him. He turns to Wesley instead – “He-” – and stops again, to modify his volume and tone, when Wesley flinches at the noise. “He doesn’t even know how to control that thing! What if it shuts down on him while he’s up there!”

“Has it happened before?” Wesley feels, at last, concern slip beneath the numbness that stole over his senses when he realized that that was _Ben’s_ brown eyes that had abruptly turned yellow. Ben’s skin that had turned into scales; Ben’s back that now sports a set of long, leathery wings. 

“Yes!” Dean exclaims. Then wavers. “No… But it could!” he insists. Dean is definitely pouting, whatever his answer – just as he used to do, when overwrought, as a boy. Wesley looks quickly away to hide a twitch of his lips. It would not do, in the midst of a family crisis, to be caught reminiscing instead of thinking on the issue at hand.

A point all too effectively driven home as Wesley’s gaze finds the twittering speck that is Ben, far off and overhead… and dodging haphazardly out of the path of an oncoming jet.

Wesley’s heart thuds a bit too loudly, and he thinks to himself that it may not be possible for a human man to survive two _generations_ of Winchesters. 

Seeing as it was on an outing with his mother’s father that Ben developed his new… abilities… Wesley supposes it is too late to hope that the Tennyson portion of his genetic inheritance will serve as a sedative to Ben’s mischievous nature.

“Oh, God…” Dean moans into his hands as he covers his eyes, unwilling to watch his firstborn play chicken with random aircraft. Wesley puts a comforting arm about his shoulders, and Dean leans into the embrace.

Ben’s begun to dart back down to earth, and he says, “Oops! Sorry!” as he descends near enough to speak. His voice is high and nasal, and somewhat resonant – as if he is speaking with more vocal chords than a human has available.

His limbs look more like mandibles than humanoid appendages (Wesley pointedly ignores the fact that there are _six_ of them), but the way he hops from one to another – in short, jerky motions, claws clacking at his sides – is oddly similar to a boy’s fidgeting from foot to foot, twiddling his fingers as he waits to be scolded.

“Honest, Dad - Grandpa, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to get so close!” Ben continues in his alien voice. Dean just shakes his head as Wesley pats his shoulder.

“Ben, I think-” Wesley begins to say, as if there is anything _to_ say to one’s abruptly extraterrestrial grandchild about discretion and restraint. Even overlooking the Winchester element – what boy could resist flexing his (pardon the pun) wings a bit, having just been given them?

Wesley tries to imagine what Dean would have done, had he found and melded with Ben’s Omnitrix at Ben’s age… and shudders uncontrollably. 

Just then, the green and black emblem in Ben’s chest begins to emit a dull, steady trill. It starts to glow… as Ben does also. Soon the whole of him is enveloped in light, blinding; Wesley cannot look upon him. When the light fades, Ben is standing in the same place, but human once more.

Wesley releases the breath he’d been holding, feeling almost unsteady with relief. He holds onto Dean as Dean straightens as much for support as to encourage Dean to behave calmly.

“You- _You_ -” Dean begins.

“Dean-” Wesley cautions.

“Dad, I’m _really_ -”

At last, Dean pulls away and reaches for his recalcitrant child. One hand wraps itself around the nape of Ben’s neck; the other grips him by the shoulder. Dean tugs Ben into a hug so determinedly, _desperately_ loving that it might have embarrassed all three of them had Ben not been an alien, and nearly splattered by an airplane, only moments before. 

Ben hides his face in his father’s chest. “I _am_ sorry,” Wesley can just make out from where he is standing. So he steps closer, resting one hand on Dean’s shoulder; the other on Ben’s.

“We know, Ben,” Wesley says. “But we’d rather you were careful than sorry.” 

Wesley’s said this line many times before. But never, he now remembers, to Dean. It was always to Sam, who had brought home some new, supernatural species of would-be pet – or Connor, who had found some new, and _frightening_ , application of his unnatural speed and strength. Dean, for all his bar brawls, speeding tickets, and bed-hopping, later, was always the frighteningly responsible one as a child. A child who’d buried both a mother and a father before being left with only a step-dad and his two, baby brothers to rely upon at Ben’s tender age.

Wesley swallows. He may have no experience raising a recently half-alien boy… but he has quite the track record with raising brave, preternaturally gifted ones. He can only hope that that will be enough to help his family through the… adjustments Ben’s new abilities will necessitate.

“And if you ever do that again,” Dean says in a gruff voice, pulling Ben back to look into his eyes, “I will ground your little, alien ass for so long, parachute pants will be cool again by the time you see daylight. You hear me?”

Ben’s eyes are wet, but his lips twitch. “Yeah, Dad,” he says, as far from hissing now – alien or no – as he could be. Like his father, he is slow to anger and quick to forgive when it comes to family.

Dean looks at Wesley. “And Lisa’s never sending him off with that crackpot plumber again,” he says as an aside, but Ben reacts to it immediately.

“Dad!” he protests. “This is so not Grandpa Max’s fault! Mom didn’t blame Grandpa Wes for that thing with the howler demons!”

Wesley coughs, uncomfortable for all of a moment. His expression becomes sheepish.

Then Dean snorts. “Yeah, well, howler demons didn’t give you _eyestalks_ ,” he says.

It is prelude to yet another argument, because of course – to a thirteen-year-old of Ben’s disposition – eyestalks are _awesome_.

Wesley steps back. Whatever his history with parenting, he has learned this much: there are battles that must be fought with one’s children, and those that can only be watched.

And the latter can sometimes be a blessing every bit as much as a curse.

“I’ll just… be inside,” he suggests, though neither Dean nor Ben is listening at the moment. Wesley excuses himself to go and launder his shirt.

He hopes Spray-n-Wash works as well on alien gunk as grass stains and finger paints.


	10. The Curious Case of Some Guy (Who Sat in on the Wrong Damned Poker Game)

So, the day started off pretty cruddy. 

They found Uncle Bobby, just to find out that he’d all but killed himself playing this stupid, high-stakes poker game with a witch.

Bobby’s hair had turned stark white. There were liver spots on his skin. His eyes had sunken further into his face and he looked so frail in his wheelchair; it was scary.

“Oh, Bobby,” Dad said, his shoulders slumping, and Connor had rarely seen him so dejected. That was even scarier.

The day got even worse from there. 

Dean got it into his fool head that he was going to fix things. Like a lifetime of pool hall scams had prepared him to go head to head with an immortal magic-user. He came back to them looking sixty-five years old and having heart palpitations. Connor and Sam might have found this funny if those palpitations hadn’t been for real.

An hour later, while they all scrambled to come up with a solution, Dean had a stroke.

Dad went with them to the ER, but he turned and left the second the EMTs had Dean in their care.

“Dad, don’t-” Sam called after him.

“Wes!” Uncle Bobby yelled.

Connor just stood there, frozen. They’d been fighting- Seems like he’d been fighting all his life. And _one little witch_ was going to take pretty much his entire family from him… in a _night_?

Connor didn’t even realize what he was thinking until Sam had noticed him thinking it. The next moment, Connor had his back to the wall of the hospital corridor they were standing in and Sam in his face.

“You are _not_ going all kamikaze pilot on me, too. Stay _here_.”

The shine in Sam’s eyes stopped Connor from doing anything but nodding. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done, staying - waiting - while his father rushed off to sacrifice himself and his brother lay in a hospital bed, maybe dying.

But Connor stayed. After an hour, Dean’s condition stabilized. Sam stopped shaking. They still worried about Dad until Connor had mangled a hospital chair past recognition, Bobby had pissed off all of the nurses, and Sam had chewed his fingernails down to the quick.

But fifteen minutes later, Dean hopped out of his bed, good as new and looking twenty-nine years old again. Bobby’s hair returned to its natural shade; his skin cleared, his back straightened. 

They all knew what this meant. Dad had played Patrick’s game… and he had _won_. Somehow.

Before the suspense could kill anybody, Dad returned. He met them in the lobby, just as they were about to set out to find _him_.

No one could speak as Dad stood before them. At least-

Connor _thought_ it was Dad. Bobby was the first to speak.

“ _Wes_?” he asked, in wonder.

The young man before them looked sheepish. His dark hair was cut the same way Dad cut his; he was wearing Dad’s clothes. Okay, he was wearing Dad’s _face_ … except it was about twenty years younger than it should have been. He barely looked older than _Dean_.

“Um-” Maybe-Dad said.

“ _Dad_?” Sam repeated, defying his geek!boy reputation.

“Boys… did I ever tell you that I play a mean game of poker when the occasion calls for it?” Dad asked, in lieu of responding. It was Dad’s voice, Dad’s accent.

“Holy shit!” slipped past Connor’s lips. 

“Hey!” Uncle Bobby scolded, as Dad frowned and Dean slapped Connor upside the back of his head.

“Watch your mouth, hotshot. Dad’s back,” Dean said. And grinned.


	11. Counting Bodies Like Sheep (To the Rhythm of the War Drums)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: there are mentions of suicidal thoughts here, as well as a canonical death

The first time that Wesley considered taking his own life, he was thirteen years old.

Not that he considered it in those terms – he didn’t want to die. On the contrary, he’d been wrestling with the concept of death and he didn’t want anything not to live.

Still, as he clutched his father’s forbidden spell book in his shaking hands – not for the first time – he knew, at last, the possible consequences of his actions. His father had punished him severely the last time Wesley had sneaked away to practice the ritual. And the day after that nightmare, when the tears and dry heaves had finally stopped and Wesley was no longer shaking, Father’d explained the harshness of his reaction with pictures of unfortunate fellows who had tried – and failed – the ritual before.

They’d died. All of them. Gruesomely, slowly – Father hadn’t said, but it was obvious in the twisted expression upon their features. They had wrestled with death, too, and they had lost, bringing only more dead into the world.

Wesley had stared at the pictures for hours and would remain capable of recalling every detail of each for years. But he still took the book. He still made the trip to the cemetery and he stood over his mother’s grave until sun-up, tears coursing down his face. 

He could have done it. The tiny kitten – looking a bit weak and the worse for wear, but _alive_ \- that he’d given to the neighbor girl was proof of it. He had the knowledge to cheat death.

Unfortunately, he also had the wisdom not to try.

Wesley would hate his father for that lesson for a very long time.

 

The second time Wesley faced death at his own hands, he was twenty-five. And he walked into that bar fully intending never to walk out again.

He was an instant target, after all – human, fragile. He had the look of a hunter (a wary eye and careful stance) but not of a very good one. Stooped shoulders didn’t convey the memory of proud kills or of an experience with deadly battle. His lowered eyes spoke only of defeat and desperation, failure and futile self-pity. 

Wesley had just ruined his life. He’d had the fruits of a lifetime of labor (lifetimes – his, his father’s, his _father’s_ father’s) in the palm of his hand, a Slayer under his direction - no, _two_. And he’d let it all go straight to hell. 

His Slayers didn’t want him. The Council didn’t want him. As soon as word got around, his father- Well, it didn’t bear thinking about what Father would want of him.

Wesley got his hands on all the hard malt liquor he could find (and afford) and drank himself silly, then he straightened his tie and grabbed his guns. He stuffed two into the waistband of his tailored trousers, two into the holster beneath his meticulously pressed jacket. He hefted a short sword and an axe – one in each hand – and waltzed into the roughest demon dive in the city where he happened to be. 

He wore an almost self-satisfied grin. He wasn’t a complete imbecile – he knew how to locate and identify the deadliest of human-hating demons and although his life had turned out to be an utter waste, there was still the opportunity to make his death one hell of a bloody good showing.

But then something happened. Somehow, amidst all the hacking and the shooting and several fortunate strokes of good luck, Wesley forgot why he’d forgotten his will to live. Death is easily contemplated in the corner of a dark, dank motel room with nothing but remorse for company, but it isn’t so palatable when staring down the maw of an angry Keklan demon. 

Wesley fought hard, and long, and somehow managed to extricate himself from the confrontation he had created more or less in one piece. He even managed to kill a couple of his adversaries along the way and win himself a rather fetching motorcycle.

In the end, he’d found a newfound outlook on life – a new idea of how to live it. He’d picked up the trail of a demon that was murdering demons for their mystical abilities and he followed it all the way to his destiny.

Three years later, he would wonder if he shouldn’t have left his weapons back in the room.

 

To be entirely honest, Wesley’s faced death in almost every stage of his life. He was a sickly infant, a reckless child. His mother was dying before he’d even reached the age to understand. He chose the profession the men of his family had always chosen – one that would possibly end with his young death upon foreign soil. Then he answered a calling that made him an enemy not only to the demons he hunts but to some of the same people he would have hunted beside had his tenure as a Watcher not come to an end. 

He’s wished for death many times. In that cemetery. In that bar. In his office, staring at his own words and the pages of books that are bloody when he dreams. Kneeling before a demon god or laughing with a demon friend, his hysteria – his hopelessness – mocked by the former and unseen by the latter.

Outside a church, watching his wife die.

And Wesley has caused death. He’s spilled blood, not all of it demon, and taught his sons to kill in his stead. He’s held a scroll in one hand, a pistol in the other, and pressed its barrel to the temple of a man he raised as his own. A man destined to lay waste to everything Wesley has fought for, lived for, died for in this world and every other.

Wesley’s trembled as he’s watched Sam sleep. Seeing the beaming boy who’d toddled around Mary’s feet the day she introduced them. The wide-eyed child who’d cried for his mother and clung to Wesley’s legs the day they laid Mary to rest. The man who’d accepted a diploma, a degree, a wedding ring in a stadium or an auditorium or a chapel – as Wesley smiled so hard it hurt. The man who’d wept into Wesley’s shoulder like a boy as they buried his wife next to his mother.

Wesley’s trembled and watched and cried, lowering his weapon finally – knowing that he’d rather turn it on himself several thousands times over than even _consider_ using it like this. 

And Wesley’s realized: life will be through with him before he is through with it. He’s accepted that - he’s stopped calling death to him to dispute it. But Wesley will never be through with death. He will dog its steps, keeping the hounds at bay from all he can, until finally Death turns and welcomes him.

He will sit at Sam’s bedside and stare at his son’s lifeless form. Feeling no relief for an apocalypse averted or even joy for a prophecy eluded. He will feel sorrow, soul-shaking grief and remorse unlike any he’s every experienced. When Sam wakes, Wesley will feel as much saved as destroyed. And he will wait until Sam is in the other room, oblivious, to weep for Dean.

By the time Dean and Connor return, Wesley will have dried his eyes, though Connor will be crying. Wesley will not say a word. He will wait until Sam is not looking and hold his eldest son the way he held Sam that morning months before – a pistol stashed inside the bedside table, a scroll burning in the bathroom sink. 

Wesley’s realized also: parents teach more than they think.


	12. Mr. Bubbles

It took some coordination to manuever in the tiny bathroom around one towel-wrapped little boy, and one sud-covered one, but Wesley managed the feat.

“It’s a slime demon.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“It’s got no arms and no legs. Like a slime demon.”

“Mr. Bubbles is a cartoon character, Connor,” Wesley intervened before Sam could become upset. Wesley took the pink, plastic bottle out of Connor‘s hand and gave it to Mary with a smile. “They don’t make real demons into cartoon characters.”

“They’ve got the Swamp Thing on Scoobie Doo,” Dean offered as he walked past the bathroom door.

“Dean!” Mary admonished.


End file.
